The College Fund at the Pasture Fence

The mower

I do not know exactly what Jeff said to Hunter. I never asked.

Noreen told me later it was a long talk out in the machine shed, and that Hunter came in afterward and went straight to his room and did not come out for supper.

The next Saturday morning, I woke up at seven to the sound of a mower in our front yard.

I went to the window. It was Hunter, on Jeff’s old zero-turn, which he must have driven the four miles over on the shoulder of the county road. He was mowing our yard in straight, careful stripes.

I had not asked him. Nobody had asked him. Our yard did not even need it that badly; it was October and the grass had mostly quit growing.

I went out on the porch in my robe with a cup of coffee.

He finished the front, shut the mower off, and sat there on it for a minute. Then he got off and walked up to the porch steps.

“Hey, Aunt Liz,” he said. He did not look at me. He looked at the porch boards.

“Hey, Hunter.”

“Dad told me,” he said. “About the fund. About you.” He swallowed. “I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have said that. At the cookout. I wouldn’t have said it.”

“I know you wouldn’t, honey,” I said.

“It was a dumb thing to say even if I didn’t know,” he said. “It was dumb anyway.” He finally looked up. His eyes were red. “I’m sorry.”

I set my coffee on the rail and came down the steps and hugged him.

He is six foot one now and smells like gasoline and cut grass, and he hugged me back the way he used to when he was little.

“Thank you for telling me,” I said. “That took more than mowing.”

“I’m still gonna mow,” he said into my shoulder.

And he did. Every Saturday that fall, until the leaves came down, and then he raked them. Nobody asked him once.

The curveball

The second Saturday Hunter came, Brody was out in the side yard throwing against Neil’s pitchback net. Hunter shut the mower off and watched him for a while.

Hunter plays third base for the high school. He is good. He has a good arm and a quick glove, and his coach says he might play in junior college if he keeps at it.

“You’re opening up too early,” Hunter said to Brody. “Your shoulder’s flying out. Here, look.”

Brody froze. He did not know who this big kid was. I had told him Hunter was my nephew, but they had not met yet. Brody did not trust easily, and he did not trust big kids at all.

But Hunter just picked up a ball and showed him. He was patient. I had never seen him patient with anything in his life. He showed him how to step toward the target and keep his front shoulder closed.

Brody threw. It came back off the net fast and straight. He looked at Hunter.

“Yeah,” Hunter said. “That’s it. That’s way better.”

They threw for an hour. Then Brody asked the question every nine-year-old boy asks. “Can you show me a curveball?”

Hunter laughed. “Coach says you’re not supposed to throw one till you’re like fourteen. It messes up your elbow.” He looked over at me on the porch. “But I can show you the grip. Just the grip. No throwing it.”

“Just the grip,” I called out.

So Hunter sat down in the grass and showed Brody how to hold a curveball, his middle finger along the seam, his thumb underneath.

Brody held it the same way and turned it in his hand like it was gold.

“When you’re fourteen,” Hunter said. “I’ll teach you to throw it for real. Promise.”

“You promise?” Brody asked. He asked it like a boy who had heard a lot of promises.

“Yeah,” Hunter said. “I promise. I’ll be around.”

Brody looked at me on the porch. I nodded. He looked back at Hunter, and he smiled. It was the first real smile I had seen on that boy’s face since he came to us.